Petrobas CEO to Deliver Keynote Address at Nor-Shipping 2013

Petrobras CEO, Maria das Graças Silva Foster – named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2012 – will be a keynote speaker for the New Frontiers roundtable at Nor-Shipping’s Agenda Offshore conference on June 5.

Foster will be joined by top executives from two other world-leading oil and gas companies. Statoil CEO Helge Lund and Royal Dutch Shell Upstream International Director Andy Brown will speak at the event, the second time Nor-Shipping hosts a conference connecting the offshore industry and the maritime industry.

This is a testament to the increasing interdependence of the offshore oil and gas industry and the maritime industry’s technology and equipment suppliers. As they develop offshore reservoirs, many petroleum companies will look to Norway – home to the world’s second-largest and most modern offshore fleet – for technological expertise.

Norway can be the “poster child” for how Brazil develops its offshore oil and gas fields, Pete Miller, CEO of National Oilwell Varco, said during the 2011 Agenda Offshore conference. Then Petrobras CEO José Sergio Gabrielli stole the show at Nor-Shipping 2011 as he shared his visions for Brazil as the world’s fastest growing offshore market.

Brazilian oil giant Petrobras will need the help of Norwegian and other foreign offshore service suppliers as it develops fields. Business ties between Brazil and other maritime nations have continued to expand since Nor-Shipping 2011, especially within shipping and offshore. In January of this year, Brazil and Norway signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at promoting closer institutional cooperation. The agreement signed by Petrobras and the head of Norwegian export credit agency GIEK allows for up to $1 billion in credit guarantees to cover exports from Norwegian companies to Petrobras.

Brazil, the hotspot for offshore service providers, is not expected to cool off any time soon. Petrobras aims to double its reserves to 31.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent in coming years, CEO Foster said earlier this month. Output in Brazil, which stood at 2.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (oil and gas) per day in 2012, is expected to reach 5.7 million in 2020, largely on the back of pre-salt developments. "We (Petrobras) made 53 discoveries in Brazil in the last 14 months. In the pre-salt alone there were 15," she said.

Since its creation in 1953, Petrobras has a track record of overcoming challenges as it explores and produces in deep and ultra-deep waters, where upwards of 90 percent of its reserves are located. As she unveils plans for Petrobras at Nor-Shipping, all eyes will be on Foster –recognized by Forbes Magazineas the 20th most powerful woman in the world in 2012 and nicknamed “the Iron Lady of Oil”.

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